All posts tagged Bob Weir

The Grateful Dead put its concert career to rest Sunday night with a final show at Chicago’s Soldier Field that celebrated the maverick band, a unique body of music, and the enduring culture of Deadheads.

Record crowds of more than 70,000 gathered inside Soldier Field each night, not counting the many ticketless fans beyond who made the pilgrimage to Chicago. The celebratory and sentimental mood rippled beyond the city, too, thanks to extensive simulcasting, with live video in movie theaters, Internet streaming, pay-per-view television feeds and audio broadcasts on satellite radio. Read More »

Stellar weather and good vibes smiled on Grateful Dead fans in Chicago Friday as the band kicked off its last three 50th-anniversary concerts at Soldier Field stadium, rolling through a four-hour celebration of favorites, from “Box of Rain” to “Ripple.”

Anticipation had been simmering for six months since the announcement of the Fare Thee Well shows and a blitz on tickets that stirred some controversy among Deadheads. The roar of the sold-out audience of about 70,000 might as well have been a sigh of relief as they settled questions over how the band would perform and how the city would accommodate the hordes of nostalgic fans.

Security both outside and inside the venue seemed to offer fans a wide berth. As they danced in the aisles during the show and, when it was over, shuffled out slowly along the overcrowded, maze-like walkways around the stadium, Deadheads apparently lived up to the positive side of their reputation. “We were not notified of any arrests at yesterday’s Grateful Dead concert,” a spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department said in an email early Saturday morning. Read More »

On Sunday night, the band played another three-plus hour show to a packed house at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., taking the stage a bit before 6:30 p.m. It was the second of five promised reunion concerts that feature the “core four” surviving band members of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. Substituting for the late Jerry Garcia is Phish’s Trey Anastasio, with Bruce Hornsby on piano and Jeff Chimenti on keyboards.

The first night saw the band playing many classics from their early days and for their second show, songs from the ‘70s were mostly on tap. They started the show off with “Feel Like a Stranger,” a classic Dead opener that features Weir on lead vocals. From there, they moved into the bluesy “New Minglewood Blues,” which gave way to the country-rock anthem “Brown-Eyed Women.” Read More »

The Grateful Deadreturned to the stage last night for the first of five reunion shows over the next week. The band has been rehearsing together for the last several months for what they’re billing as their final performances together, culminating over July 4 weekend in Chicago. Going into the evening, one of the biggest mysteries was Phish‘s Trey Anastasio and how he would fill the late Jerry Garcia‘s lead guitar role.

Dead guitarist Bob Weir said that Anastasio was not going to be doing a “parrot” job. “At the same time he’s going to try and ring those lofty bells that Jerry was able to ring, and I’m sure he’s going to reach some of them,” he told Speakeasy.

Were those lofty bells rung? Deadheads seem to welcome Anastasio’s guitar playing with open arms, especially on classics that were prone to improvisation or crescendo moments.

For fans that weren’t there, the band live streamed the show for $20, providing a high quality, up-and-close look at how the night unfolded. Click through for five performances that were some of the most well-received. Read More »

The Grateful Dead’s long, strange trip started truckin’ once more last night.

After months of buildup, the band took the stage at Levi’s Stadium, in Santa Clara, Calif. just past 7:30 p.m. and treated Deadheads to over three hours of music, incorporating many of the long jams they’re known for. Joining the surviving “core four” of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were Phish’s Trey Anastasio on lead guitar, Bruce Hornsby on piano and Jeff Chimenti on organ.

After a few minutes of noodling around, they started the show off with two of their biggest hits, “Truckin’,” and “Uncle John’s Band.” Vocal duties were shared between Lesh, Weir, and Anastasio, who got quickly into the groove of being on stage with a new group. Throughout the first set, he often looked at Weir and Lesh for direction, simultaneously letting everyone in the stadium know that he was there as a supporting role. Read More »

The Grateful Dead are celebrating 50 years together with a series of final concerts this summer, but other golden-anniversary projects are spotlighting individual members. The Dead’s rhythm guitarist and singer Bob Weir gets a life and career retrospective in the new documentary film “The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir.” The movie, directed by Mike Fleiss, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and is being released on Netflix on May 22.

Weir was the baby of the bunch, still a teenager when the band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, Calif. The doc covers the early LSD-soaked days of the Dead, his sexual exploits as the handsome stud of the group, his brotherly relationship with Garcia, and the adopted Weir’s search for his birth parents. The film also gives Weir his due as a musician, with acolytes from Sammy Hagar to Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo testifying about his influence as a rhythm guitarist.

We spoke to Weir by phone on the night before a “Dear Jerry” tribute concert in Maryland, which ended in a mass sing-along of “Ripple.” Click through for an edited transcript. Read More »

The Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” reunion shows, set to take place over July 4 weekend at Chicago’s Soldier Field, will be offered as a Pay-Per-View package via satellite and cable providers. It will be available on TV and mobile devices for fans to watch at home (or, in the parking lot of Soldier Field for those Deadheads unable to find an extra ticket). Music venues, clubs, and movie theaters will also be offering the concerts through this broadcast. Read More »

Grateful Dead fans flocked to Ticketmaster.com over the weekend in hopes of snagging seats for the band’s 50th anniversary concerts this summer. On Saturday morning, half a million people hit the site seeking tickets to what the band calls its “Fare Thee Well” celebration.

The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann will be joined at the “Fare Thee Well” concerts by Phish’s Trey Anastasio, Jeff Chimenti, and Bruce Hornsby. Online tickets to all three shows, slated for the July 4 weekend, sold out swiftly. The shows will take place at Chicago’s Soldier Field, which has a capacity of 61,500. Read More »

The remaining four members of the classic-rock band have booked a three-night run at Chicago’s Soldier Field, to take place of July 4th weekend, and with that they’re bringing Phish‘s Trey Anastasio and Bruce Hornsby to help out.

Billboard reports that this will be the only live performances the band will undertake during this year, which marks their 50th anniversary. “It is with respect and gratitude that we reconvene the Dead one last time to celebrate – not merely the band’s legacy, but also the community that we’ve been playing to, and with, for fifty years,” said Dead bassist Phil Lesh.

The four remaining band members – Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann started kicking around ideas about what to do, considering festival-type locations such as the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif. where Coachella is held and the Bonnaroo site. They ultimately decided on Soldier Field, which is the site of the last proper Grateful Dead shows with founding member Jerry Garcia, which took place on July 9, 1995. Garcia passed away a month later. Read More »

Grateful Dead guitarist and co-founder Bob Weir and RatDog have cancelled all upcoming tour dates through January 2015.

According to a note posted on the band’s website, “Circumstances have necessitated that all scheduled tour dates for Bob Weir & RatDog are being cancelled. This applies to all dates on the summer tour starting on Thursday, August 14 in Boston through September 14 in Nashville and also includes the Jamaica event in January of 2015.”

No further details were included in the online announcement. However, refunds are possible at the place of purchase, according to the note. Read More »

Two weeks ago, actress and singer Patti LuPone grabbed a cell phone out of the hand of an audience member who was texting during a performance of her current play, "Shows for Days." The bold move led to an outpouring of support from fans fed up with glowing screens. Ms. LuPone gives us her five rules of theater etiquette.